Why I typosquatted, and why it should be legal | Hacker News Reader

Why I typosquatted, and why it should be legal

blog.seattlepi.com

5 pointstimr9 comments

Summary: typosquatting should be legal because otherwise it outlaws the business of typosquatting domains for large companies and blackmailing the companies into a recurring bill with them.

Typosquatting is neither blackmail (threat to disclose secret) nor extortion (threat to commit an act that is unconditionally a crime). It is not even trademark infringement, as long as the domain names are not used to defraud customers by pretending to be the trademark holder.

The typosquatting laws are the digital equivalent of being allowed to burn down somebody's shop and take over the land because your marketing people forgot to get premises at a good location. It is a form of legal theft similar to the adverse possession laws for real estate.

That article is a fantastic example of why it should not be legal. There are real arguments why it should be legal but sour grapes over not being able to sell your typo-squatted domains to the owners of 'the real thing' is not one of those.

Even if typosquatting was legal (which I agree, it shouldn't be) the arrogance here is that he wants to register half of the identified typo domains "to prove value of his services"

That also monopolizes himself in that industry. The company concerned can't say "right ok, yes this is an issue but we'd like to work with our own people on this" because he's already bought half of the domains and can presumably now turn them over to the company's rival.

Articles in the SeattlePI are not worth the paper they're printed on. (and if you don't get that reference, SeattlePI was the first traditional newspaper in US to shut down print operations go totally online)

For most of the article I was able to accept that he might have actually had the good intentions that he claimed, despite his rather questionable methods.

Then he mentioned that his couple dozen hotmail typo domains, that he supposedly created to give to Microsoft before scammers bought them, were all redirected to his own site where he sold exercise equipment. All his claims of holding the moral high ground pretty much imploded right then.

This is unbelievable. He created a business that he knew was on the wrong side of the law and then gets self-righteous when he's accused of breaking that law.

Even more ironic he was trying to sell consultancy services to help companies avoid the very thing he was doing to them.

Visit the (previous) target site of those MS/hotmail domains. I haven't seen a JS Ok/Cancel dialog for a long time, offering me a DVD (free shipping!).

I can only imagine how funny this is for Granny, after mistyping the address to reach out to her mails..

This is all about "me my shoulda coulda woulda been the best" type BS.

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